After an agonizing 13-year wait, the proper sequel to Rockstar Games’ flagship open-world action game Grand Theft Auto, Grand Theft Auto VI, will finally launch on November 19 for PS5 and Xbox Series X|S. Because this sequel is said to be Rockstar’s largest-scale project ever, its development cost has long been a hot topic, with rumors even suggesting it could reach $1.5 billion, rivaling the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in history. However, the reality may not be quite that exaggerated.
In a recent interview with Bloomberg, Rockstar Games finally officially denied the rumor, but they still haven’t clearly disclosed how much money they’ve invested in this major sequel. But given the lengthy development cycle of Grand Theft Auto 6 and the massive team size, the actual development costs are bound to be extremely staggering.
Even so, many analyst teams believe that Grand Theft Auto 6 will be able to break even shortly after launch and then begin generating substantial profits for Rockstar and its parent company Take-Two.
In addition, rumors currently suggest that Grand Theft Auto 6 has already reached 5 million units in pre-orders alone and generated as much as $500 million in revenue, and by the official launch day, cumulative sales are expected to reach 25 million units, directly bringing in over $2 billion in revenue. However, it is worth noting that pre-orders do not necessarily represent final sales, so Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has also said he believes the actual final figures could still change.
Looking back at the series’ previous entry, Grand Theft Auto V, this title, which also caused a sensation back then, ultimately achieved insane global sales of over 230 million copies, and Grand Theft Auto Online, released later and still continuously updated to this day, was absolutely the biggest contributor. Therefore, although Rockstar Games has not yet officially revealed any details, players generally believe that Grand Theft Auto VI will inevitably feature a similar multiplayer online mode and continue to bring substantial profits to the team.
But because of this, how to migrate players from the original Grand Theft Auto Online, which has been evolving for over 10 years, to a brand-new version will also become a challenge that Rockstar Games must face.
On the other hand, Rockstar Games also said in this interview that many of the new technologies they have built for Grand Theft Auto 6 over the years will bring many benefits to their future development plans, and hinted that their next project may not make players wait nearly as long.
Source: KOCPC Chinese